Bleak Landing

by Terrie Todd

  “Bridget,” Victor began in a near whisper, taking a seat on the chair nearest to mine. “It’s true that a lot of people around here think you’re dead. I wondered, too, until I saw you that day at Union Station. Then you sent my mother that letter. I’m glad you’re all right and I’m glad you’re here. I was afraid I’d never get a chance to apologize.”

  I waited, wishing I could escape. It wasn’t that my old bully didn’t owe me an apology. I just wasn’t sure I wanted one.

  “I know I was horrible to you when we were kids, and I knew better. My parents didn’t raise me like that. I’m really sorry.” Victor sighed and turned his gaze toward the window and the snowy farmyard beyond it. “I wish I could go back and do it over, respect you more. I know you had things tough, and I . . . well, I could have been your champion. I could have influenced the other kids to treat you more kindly.”

  The man was full of himself; that part hadn’t changed. Still, the apology did seem genuine. When he returned his gaze to me, his face held the same contrite expression I’d seen all too often on Pa’s after he’d beaten me black and blue and then recovered from his drunken stupor. Victor wasn’t the same boy he’d been, I could see that. He’d gone to war and returned wounded. Who knew what all he’d seen?

  “Bridget, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked God to forgive me for the way I treated you.” He’d been focused on my hands, which I had folded on my lap. Now he looked me in the eyes and I glanced away, feeling an unfamiliar ache at the warmth I saw in his. “Maybe—maybe your coming back here is my opportunity to make things up to you. Will you accept my apology?”

  I felt cornered. Here I was, staying in his family’s home. Victor was clearly well respected in this town, and I needed him to vouch for me. How could I say no? I nodded my head in silence. But I refused to look for very long into his remorseful blue eyes.

  Chapter 36

  January 2, 1944

  Victor had no idea why God was leading him to speak on forgiveness this Sunday, but it was the first Sunday of the year. Perhaps folks needed to make things right with others before facing 1944.

  As always, when God gave him a topic, he examined his own heart first. He’d already worked through the issue of the German bullet that left him with a limp. With no name or face to attach to the soldier who’d fired that gun, Victor had chosen to forgive the Nazi army in general for this particular injustice.

  Were there others he needed to forgive, areas where he was holding a grudge? Show me, Lord, he’d prayed. Instantly, Bruce Nilsen came to mind.

  Victor had spent the last several days accompanying Bridget to various homes and businesses around Bleak Landing, but it seemed Bruce was a step ahead of them. Rumors abounded that an impostor was in town, posing as Patrick O’Sullivan’s daughter in an effort to claim his property. This town loved nothing better than latching on to a good scandal. So far, everyone had said the same thing: “I remember Bridget O’Sullivan, but I’ve never seen you before, miss.”

  Victor hoped today’s mission—visiting her father’s grave—would prove more valuable.

  “Think, Bridget.” He walked with her to the little cemetery. “Is there a story you could tell, a memory you share with someone from the community that only the two of you would know about?”

  She only shook her head, and he didn’t press the matter further. After leading her to her father’s grave, he brushed the snow away from the headstone and stepped away to give her some privacy. She didn’t sit down, didn’t cry, didn’t speak. She merely stood there and stared.

  And though he tried not to, Victor stared, too. At her. Having her in his home had shown him that although Bridget had changed very much on the outside, she was still the same hurting girl with the hard edge. Possibly she was hurting even more now. He knew she was not the kind of woman he ought to pursue. She came with so many scars, had so much difficulty relating to others. Not to mention that she still harbored scorn for him and his childhood bullying. And who could blame her? Still, his breath caught in his throat and his heart rate quickened every time she looked at him. He wanted desperately to undo the hurts that had broken her and to see her embrace the love of the Heavenly Father he was learning to trust more and more.

  Bridget turned from her father’s grave as though ready to leave. Then she stopped short at another headstone, about five graves over from her father’s. Victor joined her to see what she was looking at so intently. The marker said: ALBERT ROPER. JANUARY 29, 1892–APRIL 15, 1937.

  Victor turned to look at Bridget’s face. It had grown pale, and he saw her shudder. “Do you remember Mr. Roper, Bridget?”

  She nodded slowly, then pointed to the dates on the stone. “He died on my fifteenth birthday.”

  Victor nodded. “How about that?” Still, Bridget kept staring silently at the stone. What had this man been to her?

  “What happened to him?” she asked.

  “Complications of diabetes, they said. I only remember that because of Ma going on about the importance of looking after our health, holding Mr. Roper up as a bad example. I didn’t really know him.”

  She turned from the grave so abruptly and headed back toward the Harrison farm with such a determined stride that Victor was forced to scurry to catch up. No more was said about Bridget’s father or Mr. Roper.

  It was a mild day, and when they got home he saw his siblings waging a snowball fight in the yard. He quickly scooped up a handful of white stuff to form his own ammunition, knowing he’d be nailed as soon as he got within range.

  “Bridget! Join us!” Anna called out. “Girls against boys!”

  Convinced that Bridget would scoff at the idea, Victor was surprised when she ran toward his sisters with a giggle and began to form snowballs of her own. He joined Bobby behind a hay bale and the two of them pelted the girls, who used Bingo’s doghouse as their barricade. Soon they were engaged in all-out war. Only instead of the screams of bombs or the rat-a-tat of guns, this war was accompanied by delightful squeals of laughter and the happy barking of a dog who wanted in on the fun.

  By the time the battle ended, Victor was soaked to the skin. The girls collapsed into exhausted heaps and began to make snow angels. When they stood to admire their creations, he caught a glimpse of a very different Bridget. Her face was aglow with delight, her smile stretching wide and her eyes sparkling with merriment. The joy of inclusion, of belonging, was clearly written all over her. This was the Bridget who had been buried inside the sad waif he’d gone to school with, the one who was never invited to play.

  She’d been in there all along.

  He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, enjoying the scene. But somehow the moment made him ache with longing, and he felt that if he kept watching her, something inside him would crack in half. He brushed the snow off his coat and pants and headed toward the front porch. Just as he was about to pull the door open, a hard snowball clobbered him squarely on the back of his head. His hand flew to his hair and he turned around, expecting Bobby to be the culprit.

  But it was Bridget O’Sullivan who stood there, a triumphant and mischievous smile lighting up her face. He grinned back at her and stepped into the warmth of the house to finish preparing his Sunday sermon.

  Chapter 37

  I sat between Anna and Mrs. Harrison in the front pew. The congregation no longer met in the Bleak Landing schoolhouse but had constructed a pretty, new white building that reminded me very much of Maxine’s church in Pinehaven. I’d managed to push thoughts of Maxine from my mind for the most part. Until now. The experience of living out a piece of my childhood fantasy—being part of the Harrison family—had made me remember I still had issues to sort out with Maxine. And now Victor had the audacity to preach about forgiveness.

  “Before we can truly forgive,” he said, “we have to understand what forgiveness is not. When you forgive someone, it doesn’t mean that what they did to you is okay. It doesn’t invalidate the pain they caused. It doesn’t mean they were right. It�
��s not pretending an offense never happened. It’s not necessarily even something we do for the offender.”

  I wondered where Victor was heading with this. I’d sort of believed all those things about forgiveness, and now he was saying they weren’t true. If it wasn’t any of that, then what was it? And why had he chosen this topic to talk about, anyway? Did he suspect my acceptance of his apology wasn’t completely genuine?

  I was still reeling from the knowledge that Mr. Roper had died the very day I left Bleak Landing. What did it mean? Would I have been safe if I’d stayed, or would my father have traded me away to some other old lecher? And how on earth did God fit into this picture?

  “Mostly, forgiveness is something we do for ourselves,” Victor was saying. “When we choose to forgive, we take the power away from our offender. They no longer wield control over how we feel or how we act. We are free to act in love instead of being held captive by our grudges.”

  These were new thoughts to me, and I looked around the room to see how others were responding. While most remained stone-faced, I saw a few heads, including Mrs. Harrison’s, nodding in agreement. I hardly knew where to begin the list of offenders in my life, but God himself was right up at the top, for taking away my mother. Then there was Pa . . . Bruce and Victor . . . Mr. Roper . . . Mr. Nilsen . . . some of the mean girls at Weinberger’s . . . which brought me back to Maxine. And once I acknowledged my need to forgive Maxine, I knew I needed her forgiveness, too.

  For every person who had hurt me along the way, I realized, there’d been good people who had helped me. Miss Johansen . . . Mrs. Harrison . . . Mr. Weinberger . . . his daughter Caroline . . . Mrs. Watson . . . and, once again, Maxine. And her family. Now the whole Harrison family was treating me as if I was one of their own, welcoming me into the loving warmth of their home and trying to help me win back what was mine.

  Had it really only been a week since I’d asked God to show himself to me? It seemed a lifetime had passed since the night of the fire, but now my eyes were slowly opening to something I’d failed to see before. A whole string of people had been supportive and loyal, all my life. Had they been God’s way of showing himself?

  “When we refuse to forgive,” Victor went on, “it’s like drinking poison and expecting it to kill the person who offended us. Instead, it only kills us. God wants more for us. He wants us to forgive each other and be truly free.”

  Like a real pastor, Victor sprinkled his sermon with passages of scripture and stories from his life. But it was that image of drinking poison that captured my mind, and I hardly heard anything else after it. By the time Victor had wrapped up his talk, I was swiping at tears. I remained seated while the congregation sang the doxology and gradually dispersed. I was vaguely aware of Mrs. Harrison still seated beside me. She handed me a handkerchief and waited quietly while the church emptied. When only the two of us remained in the room, she spoke gently.

  “Do you want to talk, Bridget?”

  I wept in earnest then. I felt embarrassed, but Mrs. Harrison only wrapped her arms around me and pulled me toward her. She stroked my hair and murmured softly. “It’s okay. It’s okay to cry. You’ve had so much loss.”

  When my sobs finally settled down, I looked into her caring face. “Did you ever speak to my father?” My voice was barely above a whisper. “Did you tell him I was all right?”

  She stared back at me, as though gauging what to say. She nodded. “I did.”

  “And . . . ?”

  She sighed. “He was relieved. I’m sure he was.”

  I knew what her next answer would be, but I asked the question anyway. “What did he say?”

  She paused. “Nothing. He didn’t say anything, Bridget.” She patted my hand. “But I am positive I saw tears welling in his eyes. I felt certain he was grateful I’d told him.”

  I stared down at my shoes.

  After she’d allowed some time for that to sink in, she asked, “What is God saying to you, Bridget?”

  I swallowed hard. “I don’t want to drink poison, like Victor said. I have a lot of people to forgive, Mrs. Harrison. I don’t know if I can do it.”

  “Do you want to?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Then that’s a terrific start. God knows your heart. None of us can forgive everything on our own, but he makes all things possible. Ask him for help, Bridget. He longs to meet you where you are.”

  “B-but . . . he’s one of the people I’m angry with,” I sputtered.

  “Then tell him that. He can handle it. In fact, that’s his favorite kind of prayer, because it’s honest.” She was holding my hand now, stroking one thumb across the top of mine. “And anyway, he already knows.”

  For the first time in my life, I prayed a prayer that wasn’t merely a challenge flung out to God but was instead a genuine plea for help and strength. Out loud and with Victor’s mother as my witness, I declared to God that I wanted to forgive those who’d hurt me and to be truly grateful for those God had sent to help me. I was beginning to see that, in some cases, people fell into both categories.

  I spent the rest of that Sunday in quiet contemplation as a new sort of peace settled over me, calming my spirit in a way I hadn’t experienced before. As darkness fell, I stepped out onto the Harrisons’ porch, where Bingo lay curled up on the swing. He raised his head to look at me and thumped his tail a couple of times before laying his chin on his paws again.

  “Hello, boy.” I gazed up at the clear sky. I hadn’t seen stars like that since I left Bleak Landing, and hadn’t ever appreciated them in quite the same way I did now. Could it be true that the same God who created the stars cared for me and all my trifling sorrows? I leaned against the porch railing, a blanket wrapped around my shoulders. I heard the door open behind me.

  “Want some company?” Victor was at my side, and for the first time maybe ever, his presence didn’t make me feel tense. “Besides that lazy old mutt, I mean.” We stood there in comfortable silence awhile.

  “Sure is beautiful,” I murmured.

  “Mm-hmm.” He leaned against the post and turned so he was facing me. “Sure is.”

  “You just don’t see stars like that in the city.”

  He wasn’t looking at the sky. His eyes were on me, his lopsided grin exposing straight, white teeth. I could feel my heart thumping.

  “I hope you stick around, Bridget. I’d like to get to know you better.”

  I couldn’t help but smile back. “What would you like to know? My favorite color? Shoe size?”

  He studied my face, that old, familiar boyhood grin that used to make me want to punch him now warming my heart. Now, instead of mockery, I saw something like admiration in his smile. Had it been there all along, and I just missed it?

  “I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t like to know about you.” He turned his eyes toward the sky again and studied the expanse of stars. “If you could do something big with your life—I mean if money was not an obstacle—what would you do?”

  I’d never been asked that before, and had to pause to think about it. “I don’t know. Maybe . . . find a way to help poor immigrant kids get a better start in a Canadian school?”

  Victor turned around and raised himself up to sit on the railing. “That sounds like a worthwhile dream.”

  “Yeah, well . . . unfortunately, money definitely is an obstacle. And even if it wasn’t . . . it’s pretty hard to imagine myself doing anything remotely big. I’ve got no home, no job, no family. Few friends. I can’t even prove my identity.” I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders. “Just when I thought I was moving up in the world, everything got ripped away. I feel so lost.”

  “You can’t be lost as long as God knows exactly where you are. And he does, Bridget. God knows who you are, too. He knows your name. Sometimes that’s all that really matters.”

  I took a minute to try to absorb that and asked, “How about you? What would you do?”

  He paused, chuckling. “Never would have though
t it in a million years, but this pastoring thing is kind of growing on me. I sure love it when I can help someone understand how much God loves them.”

  I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “What did your mother tell you?”

  “My mother? What do you mean?”

  “About my conversation with her after church today.”

  “Nothing. Why? Should she have?”

  “No. Never mind.” I turned to look him squarely in the eye. “Thanks for your message this morning.” I looked down and fidgeted with the edge of the blanket. “I’ve got a ways to go, I’m afraid.”

  Victor took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We all do, Bridget.” He was gazing into my eyes so intently, I couldn’t look away. Then, with the back of his fingers, he gently brushed the side of my face and ran his thumb along my jawline, tilting my face up and leaning toward me just a smidge. Was he going to kiss me? And why did I find myself moving closer, hoping he would?

  Whatever was about to happen was interrupted by a giant fur ball that suddenly wedged itself between us, nearly knocking Victor right off the railing into a snowbank on the other side.

  “Bingo!” Victor scolded. “You sure pick the worst times to need affection.” He hopped down and crouched to rub the dog’s back.

  “He’s just jealous,” I said. And frankly, in that moment, I found myself a little jealous of Bingo.

  That evening, I asked Mrs. Harrison for some writing paper and sat down at her kitchen table to compose a letter to Maxine.

  Chapter 38

  First thing Monday morning, Victor pushed open the door to Bruce Nilsen’s office and found the man sitting at his desk.

  Bruce looked up. “Good morning, Victor. Do you have an appointment?”

  “Oh, knock it off, Bruce.” Victor sat down without waiting for an invitation. “It’s not like you’ve got clients lined up waiting to see you.”